Thanksgiving...a holiday of glee!!

I've been talking about my new book, Between the Words, but this week, I'm talking about my PTA Mom Collection. I loved writing about three single moms finding love at holidays and I'm thrilled they're all in one collection (with a bonus story). I'll confess, In Once Upon a Thanksgiving, I loved that Samantha actively worked at being optimistic and happy.

With kids, a job and an unexpected PTA Committee job (the Thanksgiving pageant), she's got a lot on her plate. But she realizes she's a work in progress and just gets down to work on all of it...and in learning to be happy.

That message resonates with me. Glee is a state of mind...one we all can work on cultivating.

I will admit that I love Thanksgiving because it's a holiday that centers on family and on counting our blessings. We have a tradition here of going around the table and saying what we're thankful for. Some of the thankful-items are silly on purpose, but no matter how silly they are, it's a great reminder that we're lucky. Yes, I talk about glee a lot and I think that awareness of how lucky I am makes it easier to find glee tucked up in most of my life.

I think that's why I love this holiday so much. I might have to do a lot of cooking (making the brine today then tomorrow cooking in earnest), but there's something to be said about a day that's spent counting our blessings and reminding ourselves why we're lucky! A day of glee!

So as you all start to bustle around the kitchen prepping for the big day, I hope you take a minute to find your glee!!

Holly

PS Here are the most recent Trippin' Videos...

PPS Check out this year's releases: Polished Off PTA Moms: the Collection Between the Words Briar Hill Road Find my books at: Amazon Kobo Radish Fiction iBooks B&N Google Play BAM In Erie, you can find my books on the shelf at Werner Books!

Reinvent Yourself...My Novel Freshman Experience, Part 19

I did my last speech of the year yesterday...Finding Your Sequel.  It was a talk about finding what comes next in your life.  It seemed apropos since Once Upon a Christmas was released yesterday...it's the sequel of Once Upon a Thanksgiving (the third book Once Upon a Valentine's is out in January!).

More than just Once Upon a Christmas, the entire PTA Mom trilogy is about sequels...about three single mothers finding out what comes next in their lives.

So that ideas of sequels has been on my mind. I realize that my life has been a series of sequels...I think everyone's is really.
I was a daughter and sister, then wife and mother, then a writer...those are the biggest things, but more than that, I've been a reader, a cook, a cleaner, a waitress, a lactation consultant, a basket weaver...  So many more.  This year, I've added student back to my list.  

Some of you have been following My Novel Freshman Experience (and thank you for that!) as I talk about going back to school and my glee with my ceramics class.  And even there, I'm focusing on sequels.  Our last project was a narrative piece or teapot.  I chose to use my book, Carry Her Heart as my inspiration.  The quote is all about reinventing yourself.  And I made both a narrative piece AND a teapot.  

LOL I'm an overachiever.  

I love the quote I used.  I think we all reinvent ourselves over and over. And again, that really fits into my recent talks/thoughts on sequels.

Holly

PS So many of my books, over time, turned into series because I keep thinking about characters and want to know what came next. (There will be a 5th Maid in LA book next year!).  People keep asking about the order of my books...I've put a list of series in order for all of you.

PSS If you missed any of my Novel Freshman Experience posts, here are links:
Part 18,  Part 17, Part 16,  Part 15, Part 14, Part 13, Part 12, Part 11, Part 10, Part 9, Part 8, Part 7 Part Six, Part 5, Part 4, Part 3, Part 2, Part 1

Heartwarming Holiday Wishes

I've been talking about my PTA Mom Holiday Series the last week or so, but I'm not the only one with the holidays on my mind!  Some friends have a new holiday bundle coming out and Liz is stopping in for a visit to tell you about it.  I know I for one can't wait!! 

Thanks for having us here, Holly!

I so love that magic is part of this year’s Christmas Town theme. This seems weird to me because I do not embrace things paranormal. I am so pragmatic that I look askance at the color turquoise (one of my favorites) because, you know, it’s not a primary color and it takes several other colors to make it and sometimes it’s not how you imagine it, but then…oh, gosh, it’s beautiful.

          As is the magic that is Christmas.

          When I was a kid, I was sooo envious of the Christmases enjoyed by my more moneyed friends. They got dolls every year and it was always the ones that were most in demand. Their forays through the pages of Sears’ Wish Book weren’t necessarily trips in futility—they might actually get some of the things whose descriptions they circled carefully.

         I wanted to have money when I grew up—surely that’s where the magic was.

          When my husband Duane and I had our kids, we tried to make sure their Christmases were enviable. Not so they would be envied, but because we were such big kids ourselves. I’m almost positive we bought some of their presents because we wanted to spend Christmas Eve night after they went to bed playing with the toys before we wrapped them and put them under the tree. We found the magic again and again.

          It was there when my husband sat up with me while I finished sewing our daughter’s Holly Hobby dress.

          It was there when I drove past a grocery store where a Salvation Army officer stood out front in the freezing cold and played “Silent Night” on a trumpet.

          It’s there when we ring bells and watch people put money in the red bucket and say “Merry Christmas” over and over again.

          It’s there when we pay for bags of groceries for people less fortunate than ourselves and take angels off trees to fulfill the wishes of children we don’t know and send checks to organizations who make things possible in impossible situations.

          It was there the year my son-in-law and daughter bought ping pong ball pop guns for every person in our family and we spent the most hilarious half hour ever shooting each other and traumatizing the cat (who forgave us all—probably because we never shot her.) We still tell the story of my granddaughter, probably all of seven, saying, “I’ve got balls and I’m not afraid to use them.”

          The magic was on our country road the Christmas Eve we drove home through softly falling snow and had to come to an abrupt stop to allow a handful of deer—I’m convinced there were eight plus one with a red nose—to cross the road in front of us. Our kids sat spellbound in the back seat. We were pretty spellbound up front, too.

          The magic is in Christmas Eve church services, in story-time at the library, and in Hallmark movies. It’s there on the bridge with Jimmy Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life. In the eyes of every child and adult who believes in it.

          But it’s never, not even once, been in the money.

          We hope you find the magic in Heartwarming Holiday Wishes. We loved writing our stories and planting our magic stockings.

***

This holiday season, warm your heart with 10 connected sweet, clean & wholesome holiday romances set in Christmas Town from 10 Harlequin Heartwarming authors who are USA Today bestselling authors.

This collection of PG-rated holiday romances are all set in Christmas Town, Maine, a location introduced in the 2014 Harlequin Heartwarming release Christmas, Actually. A Heartwarming Holiday will bring you laughter, tears, and happily-ever-afters (no cliffhangers), for more than 1000 pages.

Santa's Secret Heart by Anna Adams
Merry Christmas Carol by Melinda Curtis
Miracle on Joyful Street by Liz Flaherty
Finding His Fiancée by Christmas by Cheryl Harper
The Christmas Window by Tara Randel
Mistletoe and Holly by Leigh Riker
Gingerbread Girl by Carol Ross

The Christmas List by Anna J Stewart

A Case for Christmas Magic by Amy Vastine

Jingle Bell Love by Cari Lynn Webb

Amazon

B&N

Google

iBooks: Coming soon!

Harlequin Heartwarming author Liz Flaherty believes in all that Christmas magic she writes about—and really, in magic even when there aren’t any holidays involved! Her next Heartwarming, The Happiness Pact, will be out in December. You can find her at https://www.facebook.com/lizkflaherty (and she hopes you do!) or reach her at lizkflaherty@gmail.com .

My Novel Freshman Experience, Part 12...The Beauty of Broken Pieces

The Beauty of Broken Pieces

We only have one presentation in our ceramics class. Professor H. gave us a list of possible artists, but I went exploring (I know you're shocked that I didn't follow the easy route).  My interest is functional pottery.  I see the beauty in the mundane, the everyday, the useful.  I think you can see that in my writing.  I don't write epic stories, or stories of riches and fame.  I write about every day people.  PTA moms, women who've lost something but find something new...heck, even women who find leg waxing to be torturous!  Normal, every day.

So, my artist is Rob Barnard.  I love his pieces.  Most of what he does is wood-fired.  He does have a collection of white glazed as well.  Like I said, I loved his pieces, but more than that, I love the fact he writes about pottery and has been written about it often.

I love this description Louise Cort wrote in a lovely piece on his teapots in Ceramics Monthly, 12/83.  

“Beyond structure, the clay itself unites the parts. The clay is charcoal gray. That gray seems monochrome at first, but tones of ocher and orange hover just below the surface in some areas. Near the base on the side opposite the spout lies a band of burnt orange that is revealed only when the pot is tipped for pouring. The clay in that area is also glossier: the same lick of wood flame that brought out the color also seared and polished the clay.

"The predominantly gray substance of the pot has the dense but porous texture of good gray flannel. But if it were flannel, the color would have come not from a chemical dye but from fine-spun, naturally dark fleece.”

Cort's description of this simple teapot was as beautiful as the teapot itself.  When you look at a painting you know it's art, but something as simple as a teapot, you might miss it.  Like I said, that's what I love about Barnard's work...the art within everyday.  But along with his art, it was his words and explanation of his art that truly drew me...

"The thing that moves people to look at art comes through the object; it makes them feel excited and say I wonder what it is and why it is. In other words, they can access it through an object. This is what made me feel so good because I had a way to justify not only to myself, but maybe to other people that these objects are capable of carrying this kind of meaning.

 
   "You know we don’t generally ascribe a big value to these things. You may look at a plate and say, “Oh, this is just a plate.” But the point for me is to try and fill this object with so much that—and you may overlook it at first—but somewhere when you pick it up and start feeling it and you start noticing it, it would be unlike any other experience that you’ve ever had. The thought of drinking out of a piece of art is an entirely different thing; it has a way of working on you that’s different." (Tom Nakashima & Rob Barnard, Cherry Center for Art, Carmel CA 4/19/13: The Artist's Way by Richard Whittaker, Apr 21, 2013)

Remember my Day of Beauty posts about Erie Art Museum? Barnard's description reminds me of how I put myself in others art and it altered how I looked at all of it.

That first picture on this page...the broken plate (which took me a while to find...I read this account before I found the piece)?  That was the main reason I decided to do my presentation on Barnard.  When I started making baskets a few years back, I quickly discovered I liked to do things that weren't quite what the teacher had in mind.  (I know, you're shocked. LOL) 

That broken plate...it is art.

"Against the advice of Yagi, he decided on wood-fired stoneware as his primary medium without going through the usual apprenticeship of firing glazed work in an electric kiln. One of the first things he made for the school’s wood-fired kiln was a rimmed plate, a form more associated with porcelain. Then, irritated because the lip had shrunk, he smashed it down, breaking the rim in five places. Surprised by the effect, he saved it. It is this plate that Yagi chose for the student exhibition." Beyond East and West by Jane Addams Allen, Ceramic Monthly June 1995

That idea of beauty in broken pieces...oh, how that spoke to the writer in me.  I write about strong women, but like that plate, they have their flaws.  That's what I keep bumping into in art. 

Holly

PS I interrupt this art, strong women and ceramic discussion to remind you that the first of my PTA mom trilogy came out yesterday as ebooks!  Check them out.

PPS.  Part Eleven, Part Ten, Part Nine, Part Eight, Part Seven, Part Six, Part Five, Part Four, Part Three, Part Two, Part One

Come FALL in love with Holly Jacobs Books...

e It's FALL!!  This is my favorite time of year. It's the time of year that Erie, PA truly shines! If you drive through North East, you can smell grapes ripening on the vine.  Enjoy the fall foliage—deep reds, vibrant oranges and cheery yellows—as you drive a little west along the lake into Erie proper.  Yes, the kids are back to school...oh, and there's a bit of news...so am I!!  I'm a college freshman.  My first class?  Ceramics.  Oh, I'm having more fun at school than anyone should.  Don't tell my class, but I just finished my presentation...uh, it's not due until November.  Yeah, I know, it's a sickness.  But seriously, I'm enjoying every part of this class.  I'm blogging about my "Novel" Freshman Experience on this blog. It's amazing how much pottery relates to my writing! And I'm going to segue from school to...uh, school.  It didn't take much talent, did it? LOL  I'm talking about my PTA Mom trilogy.  The first book, Once Upon a Thanksgiving, is out today as an ebook, and the paperback will be out in a couple days!   The PTA Mom series is filled with heart, holidays and three PTA Moms who find their own happily-ever-afters!   The first in the series, Once Upon A Thanksgiving is about when Harry Met…Samantha. Single mom, Samantha Williams is too busy for love. She’s already juggling work, four kids, a one-eyed cat and now the PTA’s Social Planning Committee. But when Samantha meets Harry Remington, she finds herself drawn to the kids’ principal. But not only is Harry recovering from a bad break-up, he’ll only be around until December. Maybe they can date knowing there’s an expiration date on their time together. But sometimes the heart has its own mind. By Thanksgiving, neither are ready to let go of what they've discovered together, but both are afraid to hold on. Will their love be enough to overcome their pasts as they look beyond their present to a future…together?   Reviews: "If you're looking for a comfort book as the season gets busier and busier, you can't go wrong with Once Upon a Thanksgiving.... And, for those of us who are fans of Jacobs, it's wonderful to discover this is the first in her new holiday series." ~Lesa Holstine in USA Today "Beyond delivering a compelling read, or the first in an inventive series about parenting, Holly Jacobs earns her kudos by seriously dealing with the difficulties of divorce on children and parents." ~ RT Bookclub The second book, Once Upon a Christmas is out in November, and the third book, Once Upon a Valentine's will be out in January!

I'm so glad all the winners loved their Weary Creek Bathworks boxes of soap earlier this year!  It was so much fun, I've decided to do it again for the PTA Moms trilogy.  The boxes will go out in December, so you have time to enter.  And here's how we're going to do this one... Take a picture of yourself reading any of my books, post it on social media and tag me...and you're in. OR write an honest review of one of my books for your favorite online site (Amazon, Goodreads, etc...) and tag me, or email it to me and you're entered. OR take a picture of a Holly Jacobs' book on your bookshelf, in a pile of leaves, and post it on social media.... Well, here's the thing...do something to tell friends about my books, tell me or tag me, and you're entered.  I'll draw names in December, so you've got two months to enter. Why?  Word of mouth is always the best promotion a writer can get.  I have Weary Creek working on PTA Mom boxes!  You can just link me on social media, or send them to me at HollyJacobs1@gmail.com. That's it this time!  I'm working like crazy on the new Quincy book (yes, she's back again for a 5th book and oh, there's a bunch of news!!) that will be out next year!  Thanks everyone for asking for more Quincy!! Wishing you all an amazing fall!  I'll be back in a couple months to tell you about Michelle's book, and then again to tell you about Carly, our accidental arsonist! (Don't you want to know how that happened??) As always, thank you, thank you, thank you for all your support!! Holly Once Upon a Thanksgiving Once Upon a Christmas Once Upon a Valentine's